Hostgator Review

When you need to find a website hosting company that provides a variety of options for a variety of different applications, then Hostgator may be the best choice. Instead of taking a “one size fits all” approach, Hostgator offers everything from a basic, shared hosting plan to dedicated or VPS hosting and everything in between. Here’s what you need to know about using Hostgator for your website(s) hosting.

Hostgator, The Company

Hostgator experienced rapid growth in the past decade and moved its headquarters from their original Florida location to Houston, Texas. The company now operates out of a 20,000 square foot space which houses hundreds of employees. This is a green company that purchases renewable energy credits and utilizes wind energy.

Hostgator enjoys a high customer satisfaction rating. A 2008 survey commissioned by the company showed 90 percent of their customers to be satisfied with their website hosting service and a quick look online shows that it is difficult to find many valid bad reviews.

In order to keep your files safe and secure, Hostgator partners with some of the world’s biggest and most recognizable names such as Dell, AT&T and Cisco.

Hostgator Web Hosting Plans

Hostgator offers various levels of service within four categories of website hosting: shared, reseller, VPS and dedicated. Transferring an existing site is an easy process and creating one from scratch is also a simple task with the BaseKit site builder application.

Let’s delve a bit deeper to find out exactly what you get with a website hosting account from Hostgator, from basic plans to dedicated servers.

Core Features

Shared Hosting

Within the shared hosting category, Hostgator accounts include three levels playing off the alligator theme: Hatchling (starting at $3.96 per month), Baby ($6.36/month) and Business at $10.36 per month for a three-year contract. Pretty cute, huh?

All of these shared hosting options come with the following features:

Unlimited disk space, data trasfer, and domain names

User friendly control panel – cPanel

Premium site builder with 4,500 web templates

Fantastico – Easy 1-click software installation

99.9% server uptime guarantees

Free 24/7/365 US-based customer support

45 days risk free trial period (full money back guarantees)

Price starts at $3.96/mo (one of the cheapest in town).

VPS Hosting

There are nine levels of VPS hosting with progressive amounts of CPU, RAM, disk space and bandwidth available. Pricing starts at $9.97 and goes all the way on up to $157.46 (for the first month only).

RAID-10 storage + DDR 3 memory

Free two IP addresses

CentOS Linux with Weekly off-site backups

Premium site builder with 4,500 web templates

Free 24/7/365 server monitoring

Free 24/7/365 US-based customer support

Price starts at $19.95/mo

45 days risk free trial period (full money back guarantees)

Dedicated Hosting

For the ultimate in private hosting, an account on a dedicated server is also available from Hostgator. With this package, your website is hosted on an Intel Xenon server with 100 mbps uplink. There are two main categories – Linux and Windows dedicated hosting, each with four levels of server specifications you can purchase with the main difference being the amount of memory allocated to each.

Refund Policy, Account Suspension, Uptime Guarantees, and Others

Do You Know…

Along with other brands, such as Bluehost, HostMonster, FatCow and JustHost, Hostgator falls under the very wide umbrella of The Endurance Group. Last year this big conglomerate made a strong push to buy additional website hosting services and Hostgator was one of those brought into the fold. It hasn’t seemed to make a big difference in the service provided, although some do complain that online chat support is experiencing a longer response time.

As with most other website hosting companies, Hostgator claims all of their shared hosting plans come with unlimited bandwidth and disk space. But, just like all those other companies, Hostgator does impose certain limits on their customers. Rather than simply taking down offending sites or charging the customer additional fees for hogging more than their fair share of resources, Hostgator asks that the site be optimized. That’s a great way to handle this fairly common problem!

Are you a fan of Java (not the kind that comes steaming in a cup)? Do be aware that you can’t use Java on your site, unless you opt for the pricey VPS or dedicated server plans.

For maximum privacy on a shared hosting site, you will need to opt for the Business plan, which is the only one to include a dedicated IP, anonymous FTP and private SSL.

Hostgator uses SoftLayer to provide network services for optimal uptime, security and redundant power. The company actually guarantees an average uptime for all sites on shared hosting of 99.9%, and from what we could find online, they stay true to that percentage, for the most part. If uptime falls below 99.9 percent for any length of time, you can contact their sales department for a full (two hours or more of downtime) or partial refund of the month’s hosting price.

Another guarantee Hostgator provides is a satisfaction guarantee. You have a full 45 days after opening your account to ask for a refund of all fees paid (less extra services paid to other vendors). That’s a longer trial period than most companies provide, which is usually anywhere between 15 and 30 days.

Editor’s Review

There are many reasons to choose Hostgator for your website hosting needs. Among the best are:

The Good

Great reputation and credibility – Hostgator is one of the very top names in hosting industry.

A variety of service levels to please anyone – from novice blogger to big business website owners.

Reliable server performance with a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

Excellent customer support via a variety of methods.

Green website hosting.

45 days of full money back guarantee at all levels is appealing plus providing some much appreciated reassurance if you are new.

The Not So Good

Lack of free domain name – which so many other hosting companies offer.

Price; you can find cheaper website hosting easily available with other companies. But you do get what you pay for, and Hostgator’s advantages more than make up for their slightly higher prices.

More Resources / Other Hostgator Reviews

Hostgator Coupon: Monkey30 (30% Off) – Best Deal!

Not all Hostgator deals are the same. Use our special discount code “Monkey30” to enjoy 30% off from your first Hostgator bill. Price before discount for Hatchling, Baby, and Business Hosting Plans: $4.95, $7.95, $12.95 per month; price after discount: $3.46, $5.46, $9.06 per month.

Bottom Line: Is Hostgator A Good Host?

We highly recommend Hostgator, particularly for anyone who needs additional bandwidth and other resources and those who want to create a very complex or large site.

This is a well-established and reliable company that enjoys great uptime and customer service ratings – hard to go wrong with Hostgator!